Until his death on October 30, 2008, Larry J. Sechrest was a Research Fellow at The Independent Institute, and Professor of Economics and Director of the Free Enterprise Institute at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas. He received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Arlington, where his undergraduate work was in history and philosophy with graduate work in economics and finance. He was a Foundation Scholar with the Foundation for the Advancement of Monetary Education in New York City and also served as a Trustee of the Free Radical Foundation in Wellington, New Zealand and on the Board of Advisors of the Defense of Freedom Foundation in Newport Beach, California.

He was the author of Free Banking: Theory, History, and a Laissez-Faire Model as well as articles in periodical publications such as the Cato Journal, the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, the Journal of Economics, the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, the South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences, Advances in Austrian Economics, the Review of Austrian Economics, Reason Papers, the Freeman, Ideas on Liberty, The Free Radical, the Review of Business, the Journal of Services Marketing, and in reference works such as The Myth of National Defense, Fifteen Great Austrian Economists, and Magills Survey of Social Science: Economics.

He presented papers or gave invited lectures in Washington, D.C., San Francisco; New Orleans; New York City; Houston, Texas; Auburn, Alabama (on several occasions); Oberlin, Ohio; Charlottesville, Virginia; San Antonio, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Columbia, South Carolina; Cancun, Mexico; and York, England. In addition, he had been elected to membership in the prestigious New York Academy of Sciences. He was a member of the Editorial Boards of both the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics andthe Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.